Why isn’t my book in the right Amazon category?

Whether you published with Pronoun or elsewhere, you may find that Amazon places your book in categories that aren’t quite right. Since these categories help readers find your book, and since Pronoun uses Amazon’s categories to send you updates and recommendations, you’ll want to make sure they’re appropriate.

How do I see what Amazon categories my book is in?

Search for your book on Amazon and navigate to your book page. At the bottom, you’ll see a section called “Look for Similar Items by Category.”

Your book is in all the categories listed there, and in most cases, in the parent categories as well. For example, since this book is in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary Fiction, it’s also in:

Kindle Store

Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks

Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction

Even though all of those aren’t listed here, the book is still eligible to appear in all of the Top 100 lists and search results for these categories.

Amazon displays the categories where your book is ranked highest in the Product Details section (alongside the Amazon Best Sellers Rank information).

How does Amazon decide my book’s categories?

Amazon uses a number of factors to determine categorization, including genre codes, keywords, and titles. Authors and publishers can’t choose specific categories themselves.

When you publish your book on Pronoun, you choose two target categories to aim for. We then use your chosen categories to automatically optimize the metadata we send to Amazon with your book, in order to give you the best chance of getting into that category. In most cases, we’re able to get your book into your chosen category or a very similar one.

How can I change how my book is categorized?

If you published your book on Pronoun, you can change your target categories anytime by following these steps: